her face shone with the glad triumph and the holy joy of motherhood.

The old physician turned from his patient, to look with sorrowful eyes
about the room that was to witness the end.

Why was such a woman dying like this? Why was a life of such rich mental
and spiritual endowments--of such wealth of true culture--coming to its
close in such material poverty?

The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was one of the few who
understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.

There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts to
which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor knew that
there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the world of
books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to care for her. All
that a human being could do for her, in those days of her life's tragedy,
that one had done. Then--because he understood--he had gone away. Her own
son did not know--could not, in his young manhood, have understood, if he
had known--would not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would
understand--perhaps.

When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.

At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
gratitude.

"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.